Ohio Video-Gamer Plays 85 Hours On Single Quarter

Video-gamer John Salter of Oakland, OH, likes to smash high-score records. The arcade champion played Armor Attack for three days, setting two world records. He began playing the video on April 9, and concluded his Armor Attack run on April 12.

Salter played for a straight 85 hours and 16 minutes on a single quarter credit, scoring 2,211,990 points; the previous high-score record of 2,009,000 was set in 1982. The previous longevity record was held by George Leutz, who played Q-bert for 84 hours and 48 minutes last year.

The record-setting Armor Attack player endured by taking brief power naps every eight to 12 hours, sacrificing hundreds of extra lives he earned.

Armor Attack is a top-down vector shoot 'em up arcade game released by Cinematronics in 1980 and licensed to Sega in Japan. It was originally released in a coin-op arcade cabinet. It was also licensed for conversion to the Vectrex videogame console.

The player controls a jeep and must destroy the many tanks and helicopters that attack in a maze-like cityscape. The jeep is armed with a rocket launcher that fires straight forward; the player can have two rockets onscreen at a time. Navigation is generally similar to the Combat for the Atari 2600.